Forever Until Tomorrow (War Eternal Book 5) Read Online Free PDF Page A

rise into her throat.  
    "Stay down, don't move, whatever happens," she whispered to Michael.  
    The soldiers swept into the room, scanning it. Katherine reached down and pulled off her heels, holding onto one of them. With enough force, the stiletto would make a serviceable weapon.
    She expected the soldiers would corral them, stick them in a corner and hold them hostage. They wanted something or they wouldn't be here.  
    She was surprised when they started shooting into the crowd.  
    The deafening roar of gunfire, the thumps of bullets hitting flesh, the screams of the wounded and dying. The entire floor turned into an instant war zone. Katherine had never been on the ground during the Xeno War, but she could imagine this was something like it. Fortunately, they were obscured behind a table and away from the others. She glanced back, finding Yousefi under the table behind them, hovering over his pregnant wife. He saw her looking and held up a gun that he had produced from somewhere. He put it on the floor and slid it over to her.  
    She understood why he didn't want to get involved. He had a baby to think of. She picked the gun from the ground, only moments before one of the soldiers appeared over the table.  
    His eyes widened as she swung the weapon toward him. He scrambled to bring his rifle to bear, his surprise making him slow. The tactical armor covered most of his body. It wasn't covering his face. The bullet hit him square in the eye, punching through and into his brain. He dropped in an instant.
    "Get under the table," she said to Michael.  
    He immediately began scrambling for it on all fours.  
    The other soldiers hadn't noticed her in the commotion. They continued advancing on the gathered crowd, shooting into the press. How many heads of state were already dead? How many of the most important people in the UEA had been killed?
    And who had organized it?
    It's true there were people opposed to the Alliance, and to the construction of the Dove. Plenty of people didn't want to make allies out of former enemies, and they certainly didn't want to be tied to them in a common goal. It was stupid as far as she was concerned. An alien ship had crashed on their planet. That meant there had to be more of them out there, and who knew if they were friendly? It was true that nothing that could be construed as a weapon had been found in the wreckage, but maybe that ship had been a scout. The possibility couldn't be discounted.
    She circled the table quickly, kneeling next to the downed soldier and grabbing his rifle. There weren't many people still moving, and the soldiers were shifting their attention to the rest of the room. A woman near the back tried to make a run for it and was gunned down a moment later.
    Katherine watched the soldiers, running back toward the elevator when they weren't looking. She dropped behind a buffet table, coming to one knee and using it to balance the rifle. She had managed to get behind the soldiers, who were fanning out to search for the remaining survivors.
    She started shooting.
    Bullets tore into the soldiers, hitting them in the back where the armor wasn't as thick. They raised their own shouts of pain and alarm, three of them falling before the rest could spot her. She had been hoping to catch them all. The table wasn't thick enough to protect her.  
    She felt a pang of sadness as she watched the muzzles of the soldier's rifles flare, only instants before the bullets began raining in on her. Her entire life had been spent in preparation to travel to the stars. She had survived countless combat missions, she had made it through the grueling training, and now only weeks before she was going to be gunned down at a party, of all things.
    She felt the warm pain of a bullet hit her in the leg. Another hit her on the side, and she fell over onto her back. She couldn't believe she was going to die this way. So was Michael. She was even more scared for her friend. She had convinced him to